Research
Energy balance
Short-term cold acclimation does not significantly increase non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) or energy expenditure in obese men, despite recruiting BAT.
While cold exposure recruits brown fat in obese individuals, it may not significantly increase your calorie burning (energy expenditure) compared to lean individuals. This means cold acclimation might not be a powerful weight-loss tool on its own for obese people, even if it improves metabolic health.
ModerateRefutesMEDIUM confidence
NST was not significantly different upon cold acclimation (9.7±9.1% before vs. 13.8±8.9% after, p=0.38).
Why this rating
Small sample size and high variability in NST response (9.7±9.1% vs 13.8±8.9%) limit the strength of the conclusion.
Source
Short-term Cold Acclimation Recruits Brown Adipose Tissue in Obese Humans
Mark J. W. Hanssen et al. · Diabetes · 2015
DOI 10.2337/db15-1372
rct · n=10Cited 295×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Short-term cold acclimation (10 days of intermittent exposure to 14-15°C) recruits brown adipose tissue (BAT) and enhances skeletal muscle glucose uptake in metabolically healthy obese men.Moderate
- Cold acclimation enhances basal GLUT4 translocation to the sarcolemma in skeletal muscle of obese men, facilitating increased glucose uptake.Moderate
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